Skulls and Angels

A/N: This is completely and shamelessly autobiographical in nature, and probably more than you needed or wanted to know. It was either get some of this out or let it stay in and fester. I chose this route. I hope you forgive me for sharing this. My apologies for prolific pronoun usage, but since this is my journal and not an assignment, try to overlook that. I did the best I could with what was in my head at the time, and  I hope you don't mind. If you read, thank you. And if you don't, I wouldn't blame you. This wasn't something I even had an intention of writing, and it kind of spilled out of me, so please be kind to the verbal vomit and the person who produced it. Thank you. Hope everyone is doing well.


She's tangled in the fuzzy, purple blanket her aunt got her last Christmas. Her full bladder urges her to her feet, chasing her from the tan sofa where she makes her bed. She hates getting up. She never moves very fast, and her bladder is tight and full with liquid she had to force herself to drink. The light in the bathroom is harsh. Somehow it seems too loud. If the light were a sound, she thinks it would blare.

She sits on the toilet, curiously checking the time on her watch: 1:30AM. She thinks her deepest, most profound thoughts in the bathroom in the early hours of morning. She doesn't know why this is so, it just is. She listens for her grandmother's light snores, just as she had listened for his. Her father. He is gone now, and still she is left behind, listening. The sound is grating and reassuring all at once. The snore isn't right. Daddy's had been deeper.

She misses him with a fierceness that almost startles her, given how their relationship had degenerated over her years. She remembers being a little girl. He'd been her hero, then. Daddy had made her feel protected. Safe. Not alone in the world. Someone else to share her love of music. To give her someone to belong to.

She doesn't have that sense of belonging now that the cancer has finished what the booze and cigarettes started. She feels trapped now in a place that doesn't quite fit. The people don't quite know her. Not the way he did. Nothing is the same, and it makes her sad.

She misses him and hates it. How could he leave her alone with these people? People who only see or acknowledge what they want to know about her? All of it is only half-truth anyway. They think they know her, but they can't. She only knows half of herself at any given time. She's constantly pondering, asking questions that secretly make them whisper prayers to save her eternal soul. She waits for the day when she'll look in the mirror and no longer recognize herself.

Will she be stronger? Bolder? She doesn't know, but in the meantime, she hides herself. Her outsides never change. She always whispers - sorry- wishing she could somehow disappear and leave no holes. No broken hearts. Just fade gently into the ether from whence she was born too early.

All she's ever wanted was to take care of herself, but she's hardly been left alone enough to even try. Their care feels like the blanket she finds herself tangled in: comforting and warm, yet constricting her freedom of motion. It's a soft trap that binds her, and if she leaves it long enough, there will be a mess to clean up.

Life is reduced to a series of moments spent on the computer, talking to the only people she feels truly see her. Her day-to-day life consists of waiting. Waiting for meals, waiting for friends, waiting to sleep, and privately, she thinks, waiting to die. In a way, she craves death. It isn't that she wants to hurry it along. It's just that she feels death is the only way she will gain freedom from those keeping her safe.

The will to fight has grown dim within the girl, like a candle on the edge of being snuffed out. It is feeble, but not non-existent. She contemplates tools with sharp edges. Rolls over to lay on her hands. And dreams of places far away, praying never to wake.

This is a story that I wrote and posted at harrypotterfanfiction.com under the penname dramionelover84. Before I discovered Harry/Draco I enjoyed Draco/Hermione. This was the first HP story I ever wrote. In the middle of writing it,  my love (read: obsession) with Drarry took over my brain. That's why it took me so long to finish. It is a chaptered work, but they are very short. The warnings and things are posted as they are listed on the site. This fiction is AU. Harry is only a secondary character. I do have a scene in here where he defends Draco. I think (hope) I've grown as a writer since this, but I'm still proud of it, so I wanted to share.


( Beware, I once wrote...HET! AHHH! Run! )

A/N: Please forgive this. I just got some bad news today, and this decided to spawn itself. It's not a happy story, so don't say I didn't warn you. Might trigger, so be safe, please. No one is dead in RL, but this was apparently lurking in my brain, and some of it is based on my life. Make of that what you will, and please feel free to share what you think. Feedback and support would be very appreciated right now.

Play me a sweet song. It's one that I heard a long time ago. I can only half remember the melody, and it haunts my dreams like a long-forgotten ghost whose presence lingers on the earth long after his body has ceased to be even ash. His pain is the only impression now, so sad. Did some loving daughter call him father? Did he whisper his 'I-love yous' as she dreamed, while the scent of whiskey hung heavy on his breath? He wanted to avoid the pain in her eyes.

She had once idolized him. Now, that was no more, and it pained him. He had tried again to apologize, but failed. It fell against her skin like broken glass, wounding her. The 'sorry' was too overused, like the greasy rags in his shop. He planted wet, alcohol scented kisses on her head, and she wanted to flinch away. She stayed, though. That was the only time he ever kissed her at all, and she was grateful for that, even when the smell of bourbon made her light-headed. The kisses were sloppy, half-landed things that she wanted to bask in. She wanted to be simply another little girl whose daddy would kiss her goodnight. He pulled away to take another drink. She cried.

He would destroy himself, and it would happen before her eyes. He didn't want to hurt her, he was simply caught up in a storm of his own creation. He wanted to be so much dust in the cyclone, just blown about by the wind. Instead he was the storm, burning himself out to end the pain she was too young and ignorant to share, and so he blew himself out like a candle while she stood on the horizon, clutching her arms toward herself in a pseudo-hug, wishing he was there to hold her, still. He used to make he feel safe.  Now, she stands alone, feeling broken, and follows his memory into the darkness of his pain.

It is over quickly. She barely noticed the blade, feeling instead the relief that came with not being. She had only tried to be good. But, she was never enough. Never right. Now there are two ghosts, mere shades, gliding through the night with sad eyes.